


Sunken Fish Goes Sideways

by Anonymous



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Angst, Episode: s05e12 Safe House, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Present Tense, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27610030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Kevin finds himself lost in New York.
Relationships: Kevin Cozner/Ray Holt
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34
Collections: Anonymous





	Sunken Fish Goes Sideways

Kevin cannot leave. He is sitting in the car Jake commandeered, his hands gripping the steering wheel, white-knuckled and trembling. He cannot.

He saw the gun, that instrument of death, pressed into Raymond’s side. All it would take was one twitch of a finger and Raymond would be gone, left to bleed out on the ground, his last memory of Kevin: Kevin’s pinched face, the bitter twist to his mouth as he threatened divorce. 

Kevin cannot let that happen. He stares at the flimsy wall of the abandoned warehouse. The building looks ancient, completely neglected. Rusty sheets of corrugated iron have been propped up to keep the rain out; they don’t even seem to be welded in place.

Jake has crept out of sight.

The lot is silent.

Kevin opens the door of the vehicle and slides out. He leaves it open, and, ducking the way Jake did, he follows in the detective’s footsteps. There is a bad feeling in his gut, a festering unease. Ears pricked, Kevin listens for any sound at all but can hear nothing except for his own footsteps, which seem to him unnaturally loud despite his best efforts. 

He finds a crack between sheets of metal in the makeshift wall and bends further to peer through it. What he sees almost makes his heart stop: Jacob is being tied to a chair by the man who took Raymond - Raymond, who is equally incapacitated, duct-taped to his own chair. 

No. 

Kevin recoils. He turns tail and all but runs back to the car, his hands digging through his pockets. Useless. He doesn’t have a phone and even if he did, there is no one who can help him now. This is a matter of minutes, if not seconds. Kevin has to act.

Now.

He remembers how they were positioned. The chairs are facing the northern wall of the building and are roughly in the center of the warehouse. He should be able to avoid hitting them. That’s all he thinks as he starts the car and presses down on the accelerator. He’ll need to go fast enough but not too fast. There’s no time to calculate potential trajectories. His heart pounding violently, Kevin stops thinking.

He braces himself, forces his eyes to remain open. He’ll need to brake after the impact, can’t risk going too far. They have guns. Killing Raymond or Jake will only take them a moment.

The impact is still a shock, Kevin jerks in his seat, the belt cutting into his chest. He hit one of them, he is certain of that and he can see the other one through the window. No time.

Kevin jumps out of the car and runs. He draws his arm back, his eyes firmly on the man’s adam’s apple. No need to look at his face. He punches as fast and hard as he can and the other man goes down, gasping and choking.

Kevin’s arms fall to his sides. He cannot believe what he has just done.

From the looks on their faces, neither can Raymond and Jake. 

Oh, right.

“Better get some corticosteroids to treat that laryngeal fracture,” Kevin says, then frowns and shoots Jake an apologetic look. “Sorry, I couldn't bring myself to call him a dirtbag.”

“And why would you?” Raymond replies. He sounds a little out of breath. “A dirtbag is a useful part of a vacuum cleaner, clearly it’s a compliment.”

Kevin smiles at his husband, feeling his knees go weak with relief, as Jake gushes, “You guys are so perfect for each other!”

But then, just as Kevin wants to walk over to free them, he sees their eyes go wide. Both of their jaws drop at the same time, it’s almost comical. He doesn’t comprehend what’s happening until they yell, “Kevin!” and “Behind you!” and “No!”.

And Kevin turns, but only in time to catch a glimpse of the metal pipe out of the corner of his eye before it strikes the side of his head, catapulting him into darkness.

***

There is pain, but it isn’t what he expected. It feels distant, more like the vague memory of pain than anything that is actually happening to him at present. Kevin draws in a deep breath. His eyelids are heavy and stubborn and for a couple of minutes they refuse to move. Finally, he blinks into cool, white light, at a grey ceiling, both unfamiliar and familiar in a sense. He flexes his fingers and lifts one arm. Like his eyelids, the rest of his body is not as cooperative as it should be, but it does work with a bit of extra effort.

He needs to see Raymond and Jake. 

Kevin looks around, confirming his first suspicion, namely that he is in a hospital bed. An IV needle is in the crook of his elbow, likely providing him with pain medication. A few feet to his left, there is another bed with an elderly occupant, who seems asleep, his mouth hanging open, a thin thread of saliva unspooling from it. Kevin wrinkles his nose and looks for the call button. He’s worried, but he tells himself that things must have gone fine. He would not be alive if they hadn’t, he is sure of that.

It takes roughly fifteen minutes for a nurse to appear. She glares at him and just says, “Oh, you’re awake. Police are here to see you.”

It’s Jake, who wanders in after two additional minutes, and Kevin does not know whether to be relieved or terrified by the sight of him back in his regular clothes, leather jacket, flannel shirt, sloppily knotted tie - Kevin should have taught him some more advanced knots during their time in the safe house - and jeans. Raymond is not with him. Where is Raymond?

“Where is Raymond?” Kevin blurts out his question with no regard for politeness. He needs to know now. The sleeping old man snort-coughs.

Jake looks surprised, his eyebrows lifting. “Captain Holt is at the precinct. I guess he’ll come by at some point. Unless you want me to call him now?” He drags over a chair as he speaks and plants himself in it.

Kevin feels some of the tension leave his body. He sinks back into his pillow. “He is unharmed then?”

Jake nods. “You showed up just in time. Thanks, by the way.”

“You’re welcome. But what happened, exactly?”

“After you drove the car through the wall and punched out Murphy, his lackey got back up and hit you in the head with a steel pipe. Luckily, the rest of our squad was right around the corner at the time. They came in seconds after you’d been knocked out.”

“Thank God.” Kevin is finally able to breathe his sigh of relief. He closes his eyes for a moment, then glances back at Jake, who is watching him with strange intensity. “When did you say Raymond would come here?”

“Look,” Jake says, “don’t get me wrong, we’re all super-grateful for what you did. You saved our lives.” He hesitates and Kevin is struck by how puzzled he looks. “But, this being a police matter and everything, I’ve got to ask you some questions.”

“You need a statement?” Kevin asks. “From me? Now?” This seems almost absurd, considering, but then procedure sometimes is. Still…

Jake pulls a notebook and pen out of his jacket and nods. He does look apologetic. 

Kevin is too stunned to even be irritated, after everything… and well, he would have expected Raymond to be here. Perhaps, his husband has taken his previous comments seriously, perhaps he is angry, perhaps he is punishing Kevin with his absence.

“Okay,” Jake says, “let’s start with the basics. What’s your name?”

Kevin scowls at him, unamused by the attempt at humor.

“Kevin Cozner, as you well know.”

“Kevin Cozner? Who are you, the star of Danzes with Wolvez?” Jake chuckles but sobers when he sees Kevin’s icy stare. “Sorry, but seriously?”

“You know my name, Jacob _Sherlock_ Peralta,” Kevin replies, tone matching the temperature of his stare.

Jake gapes at him. “Okay,” he says after a beat, “that leads me straight to question number two: how do you know me? And the captain? You called him by his first name.”

All of a sudden, Kevin feels nauseous.

“This is not funny,” he tells Jake. 

If anything, Jake looks even more confused. “I’m not trying to be funny - I mean if I was, you would be on the floor laughing because I’m straight up hilarious - I’m serious. I’ve never met you before you drove through that wall and punched out one of NYC's most dangerous criminals.”

Kevin’s hands are gripping the edge of his blanket tightly, kneading and rolling it. This cannot be happening. This must be some kind of terrible joke. But even Jake would not be playing such a prank on him, not here, not in a hospital, not after the weeks they spent together.

“Jacob,” he says slowly, “you do know me. I am Dr. Kevin Cozner. I am Captain Raymond Holt’s husband. We were in the safe house together for nine weeks before we went to a library without Raymond’s permission, where Seamus Murphy picked up our trail.” It is difficult to keep the rising panic out of his voice, but somehow Kevin manages.

A flash of pity crosses Jake’s expression.

“Look, you were hit in the head pretty hard. I’m gonna call the doctor again and--”

“Call Raymond,” Kevin interrupts, “please call Raymond. I need to see him.”

“Okay,” Jake says.

***

In the meantime, a doctor does check on Kevin. He shines a light in his eyes and explains that Kevin suffered a severe concussion in addition to some hematoma on his hip from the fall. 

“You might experience memory loss and confusion,” he tells Kevin.

“I don’t, I remember everything,” Kevin says. 

He gives a nurse his name, date of birth and social security number, then he settles in to wait for his husband.

***

When Raymond arrives, he does so, to Kevin’s disappointment, with Jake in tow. 

One look at Raymond’s face and Kevin knows, knows before Raymond even opens his mouth, that all is lost.

“Hello Mr. Cozner,” Raymond says and Kevin wants to weep.

The last time Raymond called him Mr. Cozner was more than thirty years ago, during the phone call that changed their lives.

How can this be real? How can he not remember?

“You do not know me,” Kevin says. It is a statement and not a question.

“I do not. My detective has filled me in. You seem to suffer from the effects of your concussive brain injury. I am very sorry about that. Still, your brave intervention saved our lives, for which I am grateful.” Raymond speaks in his usual calm, objective manner. His face does not betray any particular emotion.

Kevin swallows thickly. The man in the bed next to his has begun snoring. 

“How could this injury possibly generate thirty years worth of false memories?” he asks, hating the slight tremor in his voice.

Raymond and Jake exchange a glance. Kevin’s reaction is making them uncomfortable. 

“I don’t know. That is a question you should ask a medical professional.” Raymond steps closer and pulls a card from his pocket, holding it out to Kevin. “However, if you do remember anything pertaining to the case - your connection to Seamus Murphy, for example--”

Kevin does not even dignify the card with a glance - as if he did not know his husband’s number by heart, as if he could not recite it right now from memory if challenged. “I remember everything pertaining to this case. And my connection to Seamus Murphy? You, Raymond Jacob Holt, are my connection to Seamus Murphy. He threatened my life because I am your husband, which was why you had me hide in a safe house with Detective Jacob Peralta.” He feels out of breath when he finishes, drained and weak, but Raymond merely shakes his head.

“He did threaten my husband,” Raymond says gently, “and I did put my husband in a safe house with Detective Peralta, but my husband is currently waiting for me at home. I owe you a debt of gratitude for keeping him safe as well.”

Kevin’s despair must have been written all over his face because both Raymond and Jake look at him with undisguised pity. He doesn’t know what to say now.

“This cannot be true,” he mumbles, staring up at the man he knows to be his husband, “Ray, don’t you--” _Love me_? He cannot finish the question; it is too humiliating, the answer too obvious. 

“Get well soon, Mr. Cozner,” Raymond says. He puts the card on the bed, an inch from Kevin’s fingertips. He does not touch him. Then he nods and leaves.

Jake lingers in the doorway, looking torn.

“Call the precinct if you need anything,” he says before he follows Raymond out.

Despairing, Kevin squeezes his eyes shut. His hands clench into fists, making him realize that something is missing.He raises his left hand and opens his eyes. His wedding band is gone. He doesn’t have it. He stares at his bare fingers in horror. There is a strip of skin on his ring finger that looks a little paler than the surrounding skin, but Kevin is pale all over, so he cannot be sure. Ring finger, he thinks abstractly, without the ring it is merely 無名指, the nameless finger.

From his wrist dangles a medical bracelet, white plastic, black print. It reads: _Male, Unknown._

***

Kevin, it turns out, needs everything. He has no insurance, a nurse informs him and asks where to send the bill. He gives her his address, at this point almost certain that it is no longer his address. Or never was. He doesn’t know.

They hand him his clothes - the weird pervert clothes Jake picked out for him - and release him, sending him out into the streets of a city that does not want him. Kevin sees his reflection in the hospital door as he pushes it open, a middle-aged white man, haggard-looking, a piece of gauze still taped to the side of his head. It is his face, Doctor Kevin Cozner’s face. 

However, he does not have his phone, nor his wallet, not even a single dollar bill. So he takes the subway - jumping the turnstile, his heart hammering - and walks to his house. 

He does not even need to ring the doorbell. The residents are outside. A woman is pushing a stroller up his driveway, with a second child clinging to her hand; a man walks beside her, broad-shouldered, blandly handsome. Kevin watches the wife unlock the door and wonders if he has lost his mind.

***

His next stop is the dental practice of one Dr. Martin Cozner. They are still open, so Kevin walks in. Nadine is at the reception desk, her hair dyed a new, lighter shade of blonde. It suits her. 

Kevin feels horrible in his cheap polyester pants and v-neck shirt and the way she looks at him, not even a faint spark of recognition in her eyes, instantly makes his heart sink.

“Do you have an appointment?” she asks, though her expression communicates her opinion quite clearly: _this guy definitely doesn’t have an appointment here._ Not in Dr. Martin Cozner’s upscale dental practice with its black and white decor, the stream-lined furniture, the bonsai and the fountain in the corner which Kevin described as tacky once. 

“No. I apologize, but this is something of a family emergency. I came to see my brother.”

Her eyes narrow, a deep crease appearing between her brows. Martin told him that she gets botox treatments regularly. Kevin was surprised that his brother paid his receptionist a high enough salary to be able to afford such vanity. If she keeps glowering at him like this for much longer, she is going to need another treatment soon, he thinks.

“And your brother is…?” she asks, her hand inching toward the phone on her desk. She notices him noticing and tenses.

“Doctor Martin Cozner,” he supplies.

“I’m afraid Doctor Cozner doesn’t have a brother.”

“You are mistaken. My name is Kevin Cozner and I would like to speak to my brother Martin. Now, please.”

“Sir--” she begins but is interrupted by the door behind her opening. Martin steps into the reception area. He is wearing his white doctor’s coat and is stripping off his disposable gloves as he walks. 

“Nadine,” he says, “could you--”

“Dr. Cozner, there’s a situation here.” She jerks her head in his direction. “This man wants to speak to you; he says he’s your brother. Kevin?”

For the first time since he entered, Kevin has Martin’s attention. His brother frowns at him, his face contorting in confusion and consternation.

“I’m sorry?” he says. His tone is cold; his eyes harden. 

Kevin finds it difficult to hold his brother’s gaze because it is so strangely devoid of emotion. As siblings, they have never been especially demonstrative of their bond, but to look into Martin’s eyes and see no evidence of it is too much. So he looks past Martin through the open door into the narrow hallway leading to the treatment rooms and his eyes land on the picture on the wall. It is a framed print of an early Gerhard Richter painting. It’s not supposed to be. What is supposed to be there instead is Rock 152, Raymond Holt’s one and only psychedelic abstract interpretation of his favorite subject, gifted to Martin on the occasion of his 45th birthday.

Kevin flinches. The absence of the painting is proof of the severed link between Dr. Martin Cozner and Captain Raymond Holt. He is the severed link. “This was a mistake. Excuse me.” He turns on his heel and starts heading for the exit.

Behind him, he hears Martin snap, “What did you say? Kevin?”

“He told me his name was Kevin Cozner,” unhelpful Nadine supplies.

Kevin quickens his pace. He pushes through the door and out onto the street, but there are footsteps behind him now.

“Hey! Wait!” Martin shouts after him, then, faintly, “Nadine, call the police.”

It is time to run, but Kevin can’t bring himself to, for dignity’s sake, but also because he is exhausted. His head hurts. He thinks about the times Martin made him play catch with him when they were children. Martin never wanted to be ‘it’, he wanted the thrill of being chased always, but would burst into tears and start wailing whenever Kevin actually caught him. He was such a little pest. 

Kevin walks as fast as he can, he bumps into another pedestrian, does not apologize, rubs the side of his head and suppresses a groan. There are stitches under the gauze, did they tell him that at the hospital? If they did, he has forgotten. If he has forgotten, this means that his memory is unreliable, if his memory is unreliable…

“Hey!” Martin snatches his arm just as Kevin is about to round a corner. He is boxed in against a wall, his brother leaning into his personal space. “What did you say your name was?”

Kevin levels a cold stare at his younger brother’s outraged face. Martin has never been able to intimidate him. If anything, his anger has been a source of amusement. 

“Kevin Cozner,” he replies.

It is the curse of their pale Anglo-Saxon skin that at any hint of emotion is immediately revealed. _I guess white people don’t need mood rings,_ Debbie once joked. Red splotches have appeared on Martin’s cheeks; he is livid. 

“How dare you?” he spits - literally, Kevin sees droplets of saliva fly and would have recoiled had Martin not grabbed him by the shoulders - “I know exactly what you’re trying to do. I’ve seen a documentary about this kind of thing and I swear to you, if I hear that you’ve harassed my mother with this…, this… reprehensible shtick--”

“You have an older brother named Kevin,” Kevin interrupts, as fascinated as he is apprehensive. Then he does exist, only, from the way Martin is reacting, not in a good way. “Am I correct to assume he passed away?” he wagers and Martin blinks, whatever script he had prepared going up in flames.

“Don’t play dumb with me!”

Such a clichéd line, Kevin thinks. Martin has always lacked imagination. He reads non-fiction exclusively; Kevin has actually seen a _tennis player’s_ biography on his bookshelves. 

“I know what you’re doing!” and now he is repeating himself. He’s very much mistaken as well, since there is no way for him to know what even Kevin himself has not yet figured out.

“When and how did your brother die?”

Martin’s mouth twists in anger and there are sirens now, audible in the distance, getting louder.

“I’m not talking to you. I’m having you arrested.”

***

“Heyyy, Kev!” Jake saunters into the interrogation room, drops a manila file on the table then sits down opposite Kevin. Raymond enters behind him but remains standing by the door, arms folded across his chest. He looks thinner. Kevin did not notice in the hospital room because he was wearing a coat and Kevin was dizzy and confused, but now the weight loss seems stark and glaring. 

Jake cocks his head at him, in a manner that reminds Kevin of Cheddar. What happened to his fluffy boy? Kevin hopes he has a good home, where he is loved and petted and fed his favorite treats. 

“Huh, I guess I shouldn’t call you that anymore, since it’s not your real name and everything.”

“I never claimed my name was-” he drops his voice in disgust. “-’Kev’. It is Kevin. Kevin Martin Cozner.”

“Wait, your name is Kevin Martin? And the doctor pressing charges against you, his name is?” Jake’s eyes widen in anticipation while Kevin rolls his.

Over the course of their lives Martin and he have been forced to have variations of this exchange countless times, thanks to their parents. 

“It is Martin K. Cozner,” he says. Jake opens his mouth but Kevin anticipates him. “The K. is short for Kevin,” he sighs.

“Wow,” Jake says, “that is _a choice_.”

“One that makes perfect sense, considering that the real Kevin Martin Cozner, whose social security number you gave to the hospital after you were treated for your head injury, died in the mid-sixties at the age of nine weeks.”

Oh, how Kevin hates these enunciated denunciations. 

Nine weeks old then, at least that answers one of his questions. Only, he does not know what to do with this answer. 

“What is your real name?” Raymond asks, still over-enunciating every syllable. 

“I told you,” Kevin says. “It is Kevin Martin Cozner.”

Raymond stalks over and leans into his space from the side. His lips almost touching the shell of Kevin’s ear, he says, “Do not play this game with me.” in a low, threatening tone of voice, the likes of which he has never ever used with Kevin before.

Kevin has to clench his jaw to keep the hysterical laughter bubbling inside him from escaping. This is absurd. It is beyond absurd. The chain attached to his cuffs rattles as he shifts in his chair. Were Jake not here, this might feel like some awful attempt at sexual role-playing. Only neither he nor Raymond have ever been at all interested in acting out this sort of scenario.

“Maybe he really doesn’t remember,” Jake chimes in. He is apparently playing Good Cop, fitting since his natural disposition is several degrees warmer than Ray’s. 

“Let’s start from the top. Tell us how you got to that warehouse,” Jake continues, “and why you drove that car through the wall.”

So Kevin does. He begins with the threat uttered by Seamus Murphy, covers the entirety of the safe house stay with Jake, the library visit, the bus ride, how Raymond was taken, how Jake alerted the squad, then commandeered the car, how he told Kevin to wait.

As he goes on, it becomes more and more difficult to look at Raymond, who shakes his head at times, narrows his eyes, stiffens. They don’t interrupt him, but from the glances they exchange, Kevin can tell that they don’t believe a word he is saying. And why should they, he thinks, they clearly have no memory of him. By the end of his tale, Kevin’s voice is barely more than a halting whisper. His head lowered, he stares at his cuffed hands, despair clawing his insides. His head hurts.

“This is complete bunk,” Raymond says. “You are not my husband. I do not know you. What is your connection to Seamus Murphy? Did he put you up to this?”

“Sir--” 

Raymond glares at Jake.

“He’s the reason we’re alive,” Jake says, “he’s the reason we arrested Murphy. You said it yourself, his entire organisation is going down.”

Raymond considers this. “Then, perhaps he is working for another syndicate? Perhaps he was a double agent? He has clearly done a significant amount of research on us.”

“It wasn’t research,” Kevin says softly, this is something he has been considering for a while now. All these memories in his head, they must be good for something. He looks up at Ray. “I know that after your father died, you felt alone, you felt like you couldn’t cry in front of your mother or your sister. You wanted to be strong for them. That this is a burden you still carry, feeling like you have to be strong for everyone.”

 _I know you wanted to be strong for me, despite my best efforts to not put that pressure on you. I wish you could have seen how much I wanted to protect you, too._ Kevin does not say that. There would be no point.

“Woah,” Jake breathes. 

For a second something flits across Raymond’s expression, but then he clears his throat and pins Kevin with a piercing glare. 

“So you know of my father’s early passing, which is hardly a secret and quite easy to research, and did some improvising. Am I to be impressed now? Scam artists usually are well versed in using cheap psychological tricks.” He turns and heads for the door. “Peralta,” he calls over his shoulder.

As they leave, Kevin hears Jake say, “Do you need a hug, Captain? This feels like a hugging moment. No? Okay. You know, if you ever want to talk about your dad…”

Kevin closes his eyes, heartbroken.

***

He is surprised when Martin is there by the time they take him out of the interrogation room. So are Jake and Raymond, it seems.

“Doctor Cozner,” Raymond says, “What can we do for you?”

“Why was he taken to this precinct? The ninety-fifth is closer to my practice.” Martin is accusatory and ill-mannered. He is standing with his arms crossed, looking at Jake, not Raymond. 

Kevin, no longer cuffed, as they don’t have any serious charges against him, is between them. It is as of yet undecided what will become of him. 

“We have a bit of a history with this guy,” says Jake, then adds, scrunching up his face, “just not as much of one as he thinks we do.”

“He needs to go to jail. I don’t want him anywhere near my family.” Martin is still only talking to Jake. 

Kevin looks at his brother, wondering.

Martin loves Raymond. They have a wonderful relationship. In the beginning, Kevin used to think Martin was overdoing it to compensate for their parents’ vocal disapproval, but no. They bonded quickly over their shared love for things Kevin does not care about, such as model trains and building sets, and Martin, with his many anxieties, was glad to have a policeman in the family. Raymond, for his part, basked in the open admiration for his profession which Kevin was never able to muster. He admires Raymond, not cops in general.

“You broke your arm when you were nine,” Kevin says, apropos of nothing, testing his new power. 

“He’s been doing that,” Jake says by way of nonsensical explanation.

“What?” Martin frowns at him, his lips curling into a sneer, saying,“I did not.”, the very same moment Kevin realizes his mistake. Martin broke his arm when he was nine because Kevin had thrown his ball into a tree, causing Martin to climb up in order to retrieve it. Grabbing the ball, he lost his balance and fell. Kevin felt guilty about the accident for years. Without Kevin-- it did not happen.

“Huh,” Jake drawls, “guess you should have gone for something more vague like: you’ll meet a handsome stranger.”

Raymond scoffs.

His gut churning with cold horror, Kevin really looks at his brother. What must it have been like, growing up in the shadow of a dead baby? An only child with their parents, who even with Kevin around had been distant, their mother at times overbearing, at others completely withdrawn. Always demanding perfection. Kevin had broken out of their bubble, he’d defied their beliefs and he had dragged Martin along somehow, by introducing him to people who were not at all like them and Martin had grown to love those people. 

The man standing in front of him now is a shell of the loving, open-minded brother Kevin remembers. He looks to Kevin like someone with whom he would not even want to be friends, he looks like a man who votes Republican, then lies about it at dinner parties.

“What are you going to do with him?” Martin inquires.

Humans, like pebbles in a rushing torrent, shape each other, Kevin thinks. 

“We will take his fingerprints, then let him go. That is all we can do, considering how minor the charges are,” Raymond says evenly. It does not seem to bother him much that Martin ignores him. He is used to it, because, sadly, some things do not change.

***

Kevin’s fingerprints are indeed taken and after much scowling, Raymond agrees to have them filed under Kevin Cozner, though not Kevin Martin Cozner out of respect for the deceased infant. With this, Kevin is allowed to leave, his court date pending. 

He lingers by the door, unsure. He has nowhere to go. He is hungry and exhausted. His head hurts. Should he return to the warehouse, he wonders, and look for clues? Clues to what exactly?

“Hey,” Jake says out of nowhere, startling him, “couldn’t help but notice you still hanging around.” He has a smile on his face. He is the only person who has smiled at Kevin since he woke up at the hospital. Kevin’s gaze flicks to the door and back.

“I don’t know where to go,” he admits. 

“Well, someone should probably look at your head again, so Brooklyn Free Clinic might be a good starting point, and then, if you really have nowhere to go, there are a couple of shelters around. I hear New York Rescue Mission is pretty decent.”

Kevin blinks. “That is surprisingly sound advice, from you.”

“Yeah, that was the big flaw in your story. The actual Jake Peralta is a great cop, does not get captured and always saves the day.”

“So I should have changed the only part that we all remember?”

Jake pouts. “Toushie,” he says. 

“What?”

“It’s how I say touché and it’s the right way, everyone else is saying it wrong.”

“Ah,” Kevin says. Then his stomach growls again, loudly.

Jake, after a quick glance to the elevator, checking for Raymond?, claps a hand on his shoulder and says, “Come on, I’ll buy you a hotdog, and you can tell me more about Holt’s daddy issues.”

***

They don’t end up talking about Raymond, however, instead Kevin gets the sense that Jake, under the guise of his usual carefree and childish demeanor is trying to feel Kevin out. 

“So what do you remember about me?” he asks, once the vendor has finished lathering obscene amounts of condiments on his hotdog and handed it to Jake. 

Kevin ponders the question. If he gives the right answers, perhaps Jake will believe him. Believe what exactly? Kevin does not even know what he himself believes at this point. That he has been transplanted into an alternate reality? Kevin knows about the many worlds interpretation but has never bothered considering it. It sounds too much like science fiction and he _detests_ science fiction.

It doesn’t matter. Perhaps if Jake believes him, he will offer Kevin a place to stay. Something.

“Your wedding date is coming up and you have invited Raymond to your bachelor party on the 20th,” he says. His own hotdog is warming his hands for which he is grateful as he is starting to feel quite cold.

He gets colder when he sees the face Jake pulls. “I’m not getting married. You’ve really lost your mojo, Kev.”

“But you and Detective Santiago--”

“We’re not-- I mean. We were, but--” Jake falters. “It’s complicated.”

“You _love_ her,” Kevin does not know what put the steel in his voice on this, but he is certain.

Jake lifts his dripping monstrosity to his mouth as if to take a bite but perhaps he merely wants to hide his face. “Relationships are difficult and they don’t last, especially once they’re, you know, official,” he mumbles.

“Raymond is married. Has he not been married long?”

“Oh… I’m not sure he’d be okay with me telling you.” Jake takes a bite off his hotdog, then licks the ketchup from his lips. “Oh, what the hell...He’s been together with his husband for a couple of decades, yeah, but they fight. A lot. Like crazy bitch fights. And I think the safe house gave them the rest. Frederick said he’d file for divorce.”

This has nothing to do with Kevin and will not improve his situation in any way, yet he could not be more thrilled to hear this news. Then, his brain catches up to some vital piece of information. It cannot be, can it?

“Frederick? The duck gynecologist?” he asks, voice dripping incredulity like Jake’s hotdog is dripping a sickeningly orange mix of ketchup and mustard. Before Jake can reply, however, they are interrupted by an all too familiar voice.

“Peralta, what is the meaning of this? What have you been telling him?”

They both whip around like a couple of schoolboys caught plotting mischief.

“Um… Nothing?” Jake tries.

Raymond directs his glare at Kevin. It is withering and there is none of the love Kevin has always found in his husband’s eyes. “If you don’t leave, you can stay.” Raymond’s voice drops and Kevin, who has known this man intimately for what feels like forever, knows exactly what is coming. “In a jail cell,” Raymond finishes but the verbal punch does not land the way his gaze does. Kevin cannot stand this coldness. His head hurts.

He gathers what little he has for one last attempt to gain his husband’s trust. 

“Look, Raymond, you may not like this, but I know you. Perhaps, there is no logical explanation for what is happening to me - I certainly have not found one, but I do know you. I know things about you no one else knows.” Raymond raises an eyebrow in mild interest, but says nothing, so Kevin continues, “I know that you have been captain of the nine-nine for five years now, that you dream of becoming Commissioner of the NYPD one day, that you say you don’t care for food, but that you love home-made scones, that your favorite breeds of dog are the small, fluffy ones and that you consider Rock Number 202 your masterpiece.”

 _I know that you are my husband and that I love you._ This, again, would serve no purpose, so he does not say it.

Jake is looking at him sadly.

Raymond shakes his head. Some of the anger has gone from his expression, but there is no warmth, just exhaustion. It creeps into his voice as well, when he replies, without rancour this time, “I have been captain of the nine-nine for only three years, I have never had a home-made scone, nor do I have a preference for any breed of dog, I am neutral toward all of them and I do not understand your reference to ‘Rock Number 202’. I would suggest you seek medical help immediately. Goodbye.”

With that, he turns and, giving Kevin no time to protest, walks back inside the precinct. 

Kevin remains where he is, on the sidewalk, cooling hotdog in hand, lost.

***

Jake takes him to the free clinic after.

Climbing out of Jake’s car, Kevin tells him, “You shot a watermelon once. It was exactly what you wanted it to be. You miss Amy.”

“I did shoot a watermelon once and it was exactly what I wanted it to be,” Jake says, eyes soft, brows knitting. “Look, if you need a place to stay--”

“I will be fine,” Kevin says. He hunches his shoulders against the cold and walks into the clinic.

***

It’s a long wait there.

Then a doctor again shines a light in his eyes, tells him about the effects of concussive brain injuries and prescribes painkillers.

***

All alone and with nowhere to go, Kevin finally finds his way to a homeless shelter. If he goes to sleep, he thinks, perhaps he can awaken from this nightmare.

He thinks about Dostoevski. 

He goes to sleep.

***

He wakes up in a forest. The ground is downy with fallen leaves, the trees around him burning in bright fall colors. He must be upstate, he thinks. He burrows into his coat, the coarse tweed scratching his stubbly cheeks and starts walking along the path, each step rustling with the sound of hundreds of pages being turned.

There is a light, pleasant breeze that stirs the leaves above. Some of them are the color Kevin’s hair was when he was younger, some of them are the color of his hair now and some are already brown and withered. 

Suddenly, something rustles in the bushes, startling Kevin. He flinches when that something emerges from the underbrush, then laughs when he sees that it is Cheddar.

“Mister Cheddar!” he exclaims, “I missed you! Where were you?”

Cheddar looks healthy and in good spirits. His fur is shiny and well-groomed. He runs to Kevin, who kneels to hug and pet him. 

“I missed you, too, Kevin,” Cheddar says. His voice is boyish and charming. Kevin is not the least bit surprised that his dog is talking to him. He scratches between Cheddar’s ears, the way Cheddar likes it best.

“Are you safe? Do you have a good life?” he asks.

“Yes, a family adopted me. They have three little kids who sometimes pull on my ears but apart from that, I really can’t complain.”

“That’s good, I’m relieved,” Kevin says. He straightens and they fall into step next to each other. Cheddar's collar jingles pleasantly.

“What will you do now, Kevin?” Cheddar asks.

“I don’t know. I don’t understand what has happened. One moment everything was fine and the next, everything was wrong.”

Cheddar nods sagely. “That’s life.”

“I suppose so,” Kevin agrees. He looks up. There is just a small sliver of sky visible through the foliage. “Do you know what happened to me?”

“No. I’m just a dog,” Cheddar replies.

“But you are talking,” Kevin points out. He feels as though the forest is growing thicker around them; the breeze seems to be getting colder as well. “I thought maybe you are here to guide me. As a sort of spirit animal.”

“White people don’t have spirit animals,” Cheddar says with such absolute authority that Kevin feels chastised.

“Oh.”

“You get most other things instead, so that’s fair.”

“I suppose so.”

The forest is getting darker.

“Where are we going?” Kevin asks Cheddar, unease growing. There is a nagging feeling in his stomach, like an invisible finger is poking him.

“You’ll have to decide that,” Cheddar says. “But be careful, if you go the wrong way, you might not be able to come back. You didn’t throw any breadcrumbs and there are no hunters in this forest. If you get lost, no one will be able to find you.”

“There are no birds,” Kevin says, looking up. The sliver of sky has gone. The leaves are rustling, winking darkness. 

“For what it’s worth, I loved you very much,” Cheddar says. It sounds like a goodbye.

***

Kevin is shivering when he wakes up. He knows he dreamed, but cannot remember the content of the dream. He is cold and his head hurts. 

***

One of the social workers tells him that he can have a banana, but that he’ll have to spend the day somewhere else. She asks if he needs counselling, if a doctor has looked at his head.

***

Kevin wanders the streets. He goes back to what used to be their house. He watches the blandly handsome man pull away in his Lexus, but there is nothing for him there. 

He thinks about Raymond Holt.

Raymond Holt does not eat home-made scones.

Raymond Holt does not love small, fluffy dogs.

Raymond Holt does not paint.

He goes into a public bathroom and pinches the skin of his left forearm again and again until there are red welts all over it. “Wake up,” he whispers, “wake up.” 

But he doesn’t.

***

On day three, Kevin has grown a beard. His clothes smell and he cannot get them to stop. He thinks of a scene in a Paul Auster novel. That this is what he has come to: thinking about scenes in a _Paul Auster_ novel. He moves because standing still is not an option.

He is hungry and cold and his head hurts.

***

It’s not a decision. It’s the door to an apartment complex that does not fall shut properly after the resident has dashed out, coffee in hand.

The building is tall enough.

Kevin slips inside and takes the stairs up to the roof.

***

No time to calculate the trajectory.

Don’t close your eyes.

Accelerate.

Don’t brake before impact.

***

The moment he brings his leg over the ledge, a hand snatches his arm and pulls him back. Instinctively, Kevin tries to fight. He needs to do this, he needs to find a way out of this, whatever this is. But the other man is stronger and easily wrestles him away from the edge of the rooftop.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Raymond barks at him. Because it is Raymond, of course it is and Kevin’s head is spinning. 

He is shoved to the ground, hard, and his arms are twisted behind his back. Kevin hurts all over now, but he still struggles, so Raymond pushes him again and this time, Kevin hits his face on the concrete ground.

He sees stars and feels hot liquid gush over his mouth. Handcuffs click shut. The metal is cold against his wrists. He is shivering. 

Raymond grabs him by the scruff of his neck and pulls him up. They stare at each other. Kevin has no doubt that his bloody face betrays the exact amount of pain and betrayal he feels. Raymond for his part looks annoyed with him and disappointed somehow, as though Kevin has forgotten to take out the trash despite promising to do so. 

Raymond grabs him by his arm again and this time drags him to the door. Kevin has no fight left in him. He listens to the sounds of traffic from below, the hum of engines, soothing almost, and imagines his body smashing into the roof of a car. Dented metal and shards of glass. Broken bones and impalement.

Raymond keeps pulling on him, his grip too hard, painful. In their thirty years, these hands have never hurt Kevin before but they sure do now.

People turn their heads to look at them, it feels like being followed by a spotlight. Up to the 2000s, they never dared to hold hands in public for fear that people would stare at them the way they stare now, in silent condemnation. Though Kevin is the only one condemned. Blood is dripping from his chin, leaving a trail of spots down the stairs.

Breadcrumbs, Kevin thinks and does not know why.

Raymond has come in an unmarked car. He opens the door to the backseat for Kevin and puts him in policeman-style, one hand cupping Kevin’s head to prevent injury. Further injury, that is.

He is probably supposed to call a cruiser for the arrest, Kevin thinks, as Raymond gets into the driver’s seat, he is not sure. He wishes he had asked Raymond more about police procedure. There is no barrier between his seat and the front of the car. That can’t be right.

Raymond digs through his glove compartment, finds a pair of gloves and puts them on. Then, he takes out a handkerchief and leans between the front seats to wipe the blood off Kevin’s face. He is not tender.

“It is a common misconception that one should tip one’s head backwards when having a nosebleed, do not do that,” he tells Kevin.

 _If I had HIV I would have given it to you already_ , Kevin wants to yell, _you’ve fucked me so many times._ It would be a crude and nonsensical thing to say, so he does not say it.

But perhaps there is value in crudeness. Perhaps he should say, _I can draw a picture of your erect penis from memory._ How would Raymond explain that?

Raymond fastens his seatbelt for him.

It is uncomfortable to sit with his hands cuffed behind his back. 

“You have been following me.” That much is not a question, the second part, however, is. He poses it to the back of Raymond’s head. “What now?”

“Now,” Raymond says slowly with his natural air of absolute authority, as he turns ninety degrees to look at Kevin. “since your actions have proven my first hypothesis wrong - you are clearly not working for anybody - I will take you to a psychiatric hospital.”

Kevin slumps in his seat, his throat tightening as though a hand is squeezing it. What will happen to him at such a place? He does not know.

“I am sorry,” Raymond continues, “but you are a threat to yourself and others.”

They will medicate him and take away his memories.

“Please, Raymond,” Kevin says. He is choked up. Tears are rising from his throat. He can feel the noose around his neck. “I love you. Take me home. Please.”

“You are delusional.” Gentle at last.

Raymond owes him nothing. They never promised in sickness and in health. Their officiant was too efficient after all.

“They will help you at the hospital. You will have a bed to sleep in and food to eat. After the treatment, you might be able to live a normal life again.” Raymond says it so easily. A normal life again. _Why would you choose this_ , his mother shouted, _when you could have a normal life instead?_

Kevin’s lower lip wobbles.

He is not someone who cries. Even Raymond has only seen him cry once, after his father’s death. 

“Don’t cry,” Raymond says in his commanding captain-voice. He has turned away from Kevin but his eyes are in the rearview mirror.

Tears are silently rolling down Kevin’s cheeks, into his beard. His chest is tight. He tries to control his breathing. It is wet and raspy, too loud, but he manages to swallow his sobs.

In the mirror, Raymond’s moist eyes hold specks of light.

***

“I ordered you not to cry,” Raymond says at some point during the drive. Kevin is shivering in the backseat. Nauseous. His head hurts.

“Do you still gamble?” Kevin asks.

Raymond does not reply.

***

They arrive at the hospital. Raymond leads Kevin inside by his arm.

“I can’t do this,” Kevin says softly. The inside of the hospital is sleek and white. It looks expensive like Martin’s practice. Is Raymond paying for this?

“Don’t leave me here,” Kevin says.

If this were a fairy tale, he thinks, there would be some magic word he could say to make Raymond remember. And the word would come to him now and he would say it.

This is not a fairy tale.

Raymond leaves him there.

When Kevin tries to run after him, they hold him back.

It takes three big men to do that.

Of this fact alone, his father would be proud. 

***

They give him something that makes all the fight go out of him. They put him in a bed in a room that’s spinning with Kevin floating two feet over his body.

He remembers a story he heard, of a woman who was left at a psychiatric hospital by her husband. The letters she wrote. The same words over and over, overlapping until unreadable: sweetheart come. 

sweetheartcomesweetheartcomesweetheartcomesweetheartcomesweetheartcome

***

What wakes him up is someone clapping their hands. Just once, that suffices. The sound of the clap rings through the forest, rippling the leaves. Kevin’s eyes snap open.

Gina smirks at him.

“Hey, Kev! How’s it going?”

Where to begin. The last thing Kevin remembers is being held down and injected with something while he had to watch his husband walk away. “Things could be better, I suppose,” he replies.

“Yeah, I can’t believe the captain straight up put you in a looney bin. My condolences.” Gina shrugs. “But then you are kind of crazy, so…”

“Am I? I don’t know.”

“Well, you’re talking to someone who isn’t there right now, so that’s not the greatest sign. Just sayin’.”

“Oh, you are not here then?”

She shakes her head and makes a show of looking around. “First of all, where is here, even? If you’re gonna have some imaginary place, at least make it a tropical island and second, if you’re gonna imagine people, make them super-hot.Though, I guess you imagined me, so that’s fine.”

The forest is silent around them. There is a sense of anticipation in the air. “Are you here to guide me, by any chance?”

“Do I look like a spirit animal to you?”

“No,” sighs Kevin. “Also, according to Cheddar white people are unable to have them.”

“True and congrats, your dog is woke. I’m glad, it would have been such a bummer to find out he’s racist after all this time.”

“Hm.”

She folds her arms across her chest and sobers. “But I do have some advice for you, Kev, so listen up.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. This story needs to come to an end, so you need to make a decision.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.” Kevin frowns and Gina sighs long-sufferingly.

“Why do you think all of this happened? From the moment that guy hit you in the head to our little chat right now, what do you think caused it?”

All this time, he has not been able to solve this mystery. “I don’t know.”

“I mean there are several explanations, right?” Gina prods. When he continues to look at her, lost, she sighs again and begins counting on her fingers. “A) The blow to the head killed you and this is the afterlife, B) many worlds theory is real and you’ve been thrown into an alternate reality, C) the guy hit you straight into a coma and you’re dreaming this whole thing, D) you really are mentally ill, E) you are a criminal who stalked Jake and Holt and reached some kind of turning point that made you save them, then you were hit in the head and your memory was fucked up. The list could go on forever, but depending on what the reason is, the ending changes, right? So you have to decide. Otherwise we’ll be here forever.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple. How can I choose?”

“You’re a classics professor; you know how narratives work. Give this story a proper ending. Give the people closure, catharsis.”

“What people?” Kevin glances around, suddenly paranoid. “There’s no one here.”

“Kev, use your imagination. A story needs an explanation and an ending.”

“It does not. In Kafka’s Metamorphosis, to name just one example, we never learn why Gregor turned into a bug and there are countless--”

“But he dies at the end,” Gina interrupts him, rolling her eyes, “by way of apple. If you want a fruit-themed death, I’m thinking orange as a call-back.”

Kevin grimaces, trying not to imagine such an outcome for himself. “I do not want that, no.”

“Then what?” Gina asks, exasperated, “You want to go to heaven? You want to open a portal or something and hop back to your reality? You want to wake up in a hospital bed with Jake and the captain weeping in relief and gratitude by your bed? You want to take all these meds and do therapy and be cured and maybe later fall in love with the captain all over again? You want to regain your real memories of your life of crime and then maybe make Holt fall in love with you? Just name it.”

Kevin narrows his eyes. “Wait, you just said I was a classics professor…”

“That’s what you think you are and I’m just a voice in your head.” She kicks up a bunch of leaves in frustration and they flutter back to the soft ground. “Kev, you already won. You got to see that without you there, everyone’s life is a pile of flaming hot garbage. And you didn’t even see Boyle. Spoiler alert: when he grew that goatee, they let him keep it.”

“And you say that this is my decision? Truly?”

It cannot be real, but then, Kevin thinks, what is? He might already be dead, he might be in a coma, he might never have existed at all. Pebbles in a torrent, no past, no future, merely a perpetual now. 

Gina nods. “You know I’m always right.”

A breeze wakes the forest.

Kevin gives his answer.


End file.
